Monday, March 31, 2014

Government employment

A few weeks ago, a subscriber to Ethical Musings raised some
interesting questions about government employment:

Government salaries/wages
too high? Pensions too generous?

Are government jobs
sinecures?

What's wrong with the
government bureaucracy? What can we do to fix it?

Those questions prompted these musings.

First, civil service systems (e.g., in the United States and
United Kingdom) emerged as a way to insulate government employees from the
worst vagaries of political influence and to improve the quality of services provided
to the public. A civil service in which an elected government can replace all
of the employees will tend to attract ideologues and incompetents. Competent, career-minded
potential employees will generally choose to avoid the uncertain, temporary
nature of a job in which tenure depends upon an uncertain political outcome.

Second, many government functions require a reasonable level
of competence, knowledge, and perhaps experience. Obvious examples include
positions involved in testing new drugs, formulating regulations pertaining to
public safety, law enforcement, and financial management. In other words, the
preponderance of government positions require more from incumbents than the
type of skills, knowledge, and competence associated with most low wage, manual
labor jobs. Increased reliance on computers is substantially reducing the
number of clerical employees, which results in a diminishing number of low
wage, low skill government jobs.

Third, growing numbers of people regard government
employment unfavorably, a change especially noticeable in the United Kingdom.
This diminishes the status of government employees, making it more difficult to
attract highly qualified individuals and thus making compensation more
important in an individual's decision to accept (or reject) a government job.
Ironically, the civil service systems created to insulate employees from inappropriate
political influence have now made it difficult for elected leaders to exert
appropriate guidance (e.g., civil servants may simply engage in delaying tactics
until a new incumbent arrives) and for the exceptionally competent to rise
speedily within the organization.

Fourth, most government programs and offices have external
constituencies with some measure of political influence. These external
constituencies, widely known as special interest groups, seek to use the
government program or office to achieve the group's agenda. Consequently,
eliminating redundant, anachronistic, inefficient, or undesirable programs,
policies, etc., is exceptionally difficult. In the U.S., political gridlock exacerbates
these problems. Bureaucratic inertia contributes to these problems everywhere.

Fifth, political pressures, potential media interest, and
external interest groups all create an environment for government unlike
anything found in the private sector. Not only is there generally zero tolerance
for fraud, waste, or abuse but the outward appearance of any of those is not
tolerated. Businesses, for example, will generally weigh the cost of reducing
fraud, waste, and abuse against the cost of prevention. Thus, a business will
not spend $10 to avoid the risk of losing $1. Governments do.

Sixth, job security, intended to insulate personnel from inappropriate
political pressures, has had the unintended consequence of deemphasizing job performance.
This can sap employee morale and make terminating employment of the occasional
misfit or incompetent so costly that management may avoid taking those steps
even in the most egregious situations.

What can we do to improve government?

Rationalize management.
For example, let's accept fraud, waste, and abuse when the cost of prevention
exceeds potential benefits. The real cost of our current approach to prevention
is to make government more costly and less responsive.

Raise the status of civil servants.
Serving the public interest is highly honorable, something as true for
civil servants as military personnel. Most civil servants I have known, in
both the US and the UK, wanted to perform well in serving the public good.

Improve the civil service system
to make hiring, firing, and promoting individuals easier. Yesterday's ills
are not today's problems.

Give managers more latitude
to determine optimal methods for achieving the goals and outcomes set by elected
or appointed political leadership.

Collectively, these changes will improve the conditions of
government employment and make that employment more satisfying, attracting a
higher caliber employee.

Government salaries, pensions, and other benefits have historically
helped to raise employment compensation standards. Today, government compensation
– for senior managers – is far below what comparable civilian posts pay. Raising
this compensation to competitive levels will attract some of a nation's best
and brightest, improving the quality of government.

Conversely, government compensation for many other workers offers
a pension plan that is unaffordable and unrealistic because the plan is
premised on both a shorter working life and total lifespan than people have in
the twenty-first century. Fixing the pension plan without concurrently
addressing the other issues will simply compound existing problems.

Grand pronouncements about cutting government waste or size
are not the answer. Citizens rightly value the vast majority of the services that
government provides. The challenge is to improve quality, enhance efficiency,
and cut costs – all of which are possible.

1 comment:

Anonymous
said...

Excellent report. Although, when i questioned the work ethics and laziness of some Parks workers here in Los Angeles. The superintendent replied " What do you expect Bob, their county employees'. Herein lies the problem (poor supervision). Like in school the best teachers produce the best students. Slackers love incompetent supervisors be it private or public.